[tech] mailman2 vs python3, mailfish/mail9 Re: Is the tech list working?

[Mark Tearle]

On Thu, 6 Apr 2023, at 6:59 AM, Nick Bannon wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 05, 2023 at 08:20:39PM +0800, Mark Tearle wrote:
>> Hi folks
>> Please don't dist-upgrade mailfish.    
>
> Hoping to make the new VM mail9 a rebuildable testbed/CI host (details
> are in uccpass).
>
> re:
> https://discord.com/channels/264401248676085760/264401248676085760/983962991047368704
> https://discord.com/channels/264401248676085760/264401248676085760/1093151204336488521

That's awesome.   I will consider using that machine for fixing up the UCC ansible SOE mail portions (basically I need to update / rebuild the mailman parts now)

>> UCC mailman is old and brittle and requires Python 2.   Python 2 support is bad in bullseye and will be even worse in bookworm.
>
> bookworm is nearly here - however... mailman2 in Python3 is a thing that
> we could use for a while:
>
> https://github.com/jaredmauch/mailman2-python3
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2022/08/msg00075.html
> https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/25347.28199.349250.665222@chiark.greenend.org.uk

That's awesome.  I've emailed Jared to inquire about the status of the fork.

The path forward for us would then be:
* fix the UCC Ansible SOE as it stands
* import the mailman 2.1.39 changes into our current repo
* update the UCC Ansible SOE with that change
* pick up Jared's patches and apply / merge them into the UCC mailman repo (or start another, that might be cleaner)
* test
* update the UCC Ansible SOE with that change (we may chose to build a fresh mailserver at that point)

> One of the things that stop mailman3 being an easy drop-in upgrade
> is the change in archiving - I'd like to keep our current pipermail
> structure for at least a while, even if we were to add something new,
> like HyperKitty. Both are available in mailman2, above, and I think at
> least pipermail can be and has been plucked out and run independently,
> which would make things simpler.
>
> https://github.com/jaredmauch/mailman2-python3/blob/main/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py
> https://github.com/jaredmauch/mailman2-python3/blob/main/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py
>
> Is the above msgid-search a Debian tweak? That'd be a lovely feature to add,
> I'm not sure exactly where all the code is for that.
>

i think the msgid-search is a local Debian tweak and probably not in their mailman package.   Perhaps a well placed email to the debian web folk might track down some implementation details?   I can also poke a couple of Debian folk I know.

Cheers,
Mark
--
Mark Tearle <mtearle at ucc.asn.au>